Paradise: Chapter 5: Deuteronomy (5912)(DRAFT!)

 

Chapter 5: Deuteronomy (5912)

Thorman watched as Sinclair lit a cigarette and flicked the match over the parapet of Grayfriars Tower. As the old man took the first few draws, Thorman tried to compose himself. He had known Sinclair before the reditus, and like Thorman the Archbishop had changed a great deal in the last year and a half. While Thorman had retreated into the strange world of sanity, Sinclair had embraced the chaos, and was a dangerous man because of it.

Sinclair had been unremarkable, as men of his kind went. He was the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at the time of the reditus, six months into his twelve-month post before the world turned upside down. In the months that followed, while Thorman had been doing his best to stay alive Sinclair had flourished and he’d made sure, through various forms of skulduggery, that he had become the Archbishop of Strake.

Thorman suspected it is because Sinclair was a sociopath, or there was something else even more wrong with this red-faced corpulent man that meant he had no great issue with religious persecution and church sanction executions. Like Thorman’s wife, he had the blood of multitudes on his hands.

‘You know what they are calling Strake now, Thomas?’ asked Sinclair as he puffed away.

‘I’ve no idea, Your Grace,’ replied Thorman.

‘Riverseafingal,’ snorted the archbishop, ‘Do ye get it? No? From that kids show. A made-up city. It was filmed in North Berwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh. What else? Aye, Newcastle, Manchester, anyway, all the bits that Strake is made of.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Thorman with a slightly forced laugh. ‘I see.’

‘Anyway…’ said the archbishop with a sigh. ‘I’ve been hearing about your new little project, Thomas. Still trying to save people? Aiming to be a saint?’

‘Not at all, Your Grace,’ Thorman feeling a knot of tension grow in his stomach. He reminded himself that Sinclair would usually go along with his requests if they involved no effort or comeback on his part.

Sinclair grunted and returned to his cigarette and did not speak again until he had finished it. The butt also went over the rail, to sizzle out in a rain filled street gutter below.

‘Most saints were martyred, think on that Thomas,’ chuckled Sinclair, but he was already bored of the subject, as he always did when speaking about anyone except himself.

He lit another cigarette and changed the conversation. ‘I’m so late because of all those bloody checkpoints. Even Church plates can’t get you through an army blockade any quicker. It’s getting wild up north again. I’ll re-arrange all my meetings in the morning, I’m just here for three days. I’ve still the Provost to see and a meeting of the secular council. If you do your bit here, then everything is in place.’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’ Thorman was wearing a quilted jacket to keep out the cold and had turned his back against the chill wind. The icy breeze whistle across the slate roofs, whipping up droplets from the puddles of rainwater.

Sinclair went on, going over all the things he planned to say to the people that he planned to meet the next day. Thorman barely listen as he had heard it before on the telephone many many times before and he was getting the words straight in his head in preparation of the archbishop mentioning Goldengreens again.

After a while, the archbishop’s monologue moved on to his pet project, the building of a Tabernacle in Evermarch. This was a topic that Thorman was cynical about, confident that the reason for its construction was to increase the importance of the archdiocese and thus the Archbishop’s standing, and had little to do with the glory of God. There was already one in Kirkland, just fifteen miles away, and Thomas thought he could be forgiven for thinking another one so close was pointless.

‘I’m confident we can get the Provost on board. We can pay off the council. If we can keep the Committee out of it, it surely certain that Evermarch will finally have its Tabernacle,’ said the Archbishop lighting his fourth cigarette. ‘You can’t inhabit this council building indefinitely.’

The last thing Thorman wanted was to live in what would, once built, be in essence a giant marquee tent. He liked it at Merric, it was large, well-appointed, and central. A Tabernacle built to the specification in the bible would be none of those things.

As if reading his thoughts, the Archbishop went on. ‘Curtains, ringlets, all the woodwork. Start sourcing them. Use the plans from Strake. It’s just camping, Thorman. On a larger scale.’

‘Has God asked for it?’ asked Thorman as inoffensively as he could, but knowing he was venturing into dangerous territory.

‘Well, no,’ admitted the Archbishop. ‘But how can he not like another Tabernacle?’

Sinclair flicked his fourth cigarette butt over the parapet. He then leaned over the stone rail a little to look down on Broad Street and the fountain. After a minute or two he crossed back to the other side of the tower that looked across the river to the west and south, blinking as the wind hit his face.

He stopped in his tracks and looked down, then said, ‘there are sweetie wrappers here Thorman, where have they come from?’

‘Other people come up here, Your Grace.’

‘What, who?’

‘Not the laity,’ hastened Thorman. ‘Just priests.’

Sinclair sighed and went back to the rail, looking down towards the silvery line of the river, a thin line of light in the gloom of endarkened Evermarch.

‘So, these slaves then?’

‘Well, Your Grace. We just got a driver back from Goldengreens yesterday,’ replied Thorman. ‘There are apparently several farms down there where there are hundreds of people being starved and worked to death by the Committee.’

‘What of it?’ shrugged Sinclair. ‘It’s Committee business.’

‘Surely though, Your Grace,’ went on Thorman. ‘Surely, they are over-stepping their bounds? Punishments are carried out by the church, that is the law. I’m informed though that they are killing them by the truck loads.’

‘Slaves, Thomas,’ sighed. ‘The Covenant Code, if you want to talk about law, allows for the punishment of slaves.’

‘Not murder though, Your Grace,’ wheedled Thorman. ‘And in such numbers? At least one of the farms had church property on it. We could close down the whole place based on that alone. How can any of this be God’s will?’

‘Leave God’s will to me, Thomas,’ said Sinclair imperiously. ‘What would you even do with them?’

‘Move them to Evermarch? We could set up the football stadium again.’

‘Aye, you sure about that Thomas?’ smirked the archbishop. ‘It wasn’t so long ago the heretics were being put to death there. You might make the people of Evermarch a bit nervous if you break the chains on the doors of that place.’

Thorman fought the urge to start chewing on his sleeves. ‘I know, but it would be different this time…’

Sinclair fished out his cigarette packet, saw it was empty then crushed it and tossed it into the corner of the tower. He turned to Thorman and said, ‘I tell you what, you get me my Tabernacle, Thomas, and you can put them on a rocket to the moon for all I care.’

Thorman nodded and bowed his head as the Archbishop passed him on his way to the stairwell door. He followed silently, not wanting to say or do anything that would make Sinclair reconsider the gift he had just given him. Thorman would certainly build that ridiculous tent if that’s what it meant to deal with Goldengreens and get three hundred or so souls out of the clutches of the Committee.

As they wound their way down the stairs then along the corridor to the accommodation block, Sinclair turned to a different subject.

‘You know there is word going around that God is going to appoint judges.’

‘Really, Your Grace?’

‘That’s the word. Good night, Thomas, I know my way from here.’

The archbishop didn’t turn around as he dismissed Thorman. He waited a moment for the Archbishop to leave then slowly returned to the stairs and descended to the ground floor. He considered what Sinclair had just said. It had sounded like a throw away remark, the sort of bombshell the Archbishop liked to land on his underlings at the end of phone calls and meetings. What had me meant by it? Did he mean that God was going to appoint biblical Judges like Othniel, Ehud or Samson? Creeping dread gripped Thorman once more, and he felt as cold as he had done minutes ago up on the tower as he had sheltered from the November wind. This must be what was driving his obsession with the Tabernacle. Sinclair was angling to become a judge. A biblical Judge. And knowing the man, he would not be Othniel, delivering forty years of peace, he would be Shamgar, slaughtering his enemies by the hundreds with an ox goad.

Thorman took a deep breath, and the horror fantasy he had been concocting in his head of Sinclair sat atop of six hundred corpses with a cattle prod across his knees faded. He returned to his office to gather his things and go home.

He was nearly at the front door when he remembered he had promised a leg of lamb for his wife. It was way past dinner time now, but it would do for Sunday lunch. He detoured through the burning rooms to where the priest portions were stored but saw nothing suitable. He then went to the altar where Acolyte Acton was performing a ritual. Thorman assumed Acton was clearing a back log if he was up at this time of night.

A bull had recently been slaughtered and Action was using its blood to trace patterns on the altar’s horns. Once this was complete, he picked up a nearby bucket and gently tipped it over the altar top, letting it run down into the gutters on either side. He then threw two slabs of beef onto the braziers either side of the altar and turned to the bishop.

‘You Grace,’ he said with a small bow.

‘Still here?’ asked Thorman.

‘An offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord,’ quoth Acton.

The acolyte’s hands were red with blood to the elbow. He held them up, smiled, then began washing them with water from the altar’s font.

Another acolyte appeared and began to tend the meat, as if he was at a barbeque, turning it and letting it sizzle. Thorman’s stomach rumbled, despite the grotesque sight of Acton washing his hands.

‘Daily, Monthly, Yearly, Your Grace,’ smiled Acton benignly. ‘It never ends.’

Fat was sizzling on the altar and dribbling down into the scuppers. Thorman’s mouth was beginning to water.

‘There is nothing left of the lamb?’

‘Nothing at all your Grace, but I have some lovely rib eye,’ oozed Acton. ‘I was leaving it by for myself, but it’s yours if you want it.’

‘I promised my wife some lamb…’ murmured Thorman as Acton retrieved a packet of steak from one of the refrigerators. ‘Thank you, Acton, yes, that’s a good cut. I’m sure she’ll be happy with that. Thank you. Good night.’

***

The bishop left and Acton sneered at his back. He was finished though and nodded to the laymen to begin cleaning the burning rooms. He went through to the Guilt Offerings Chamber and used the washrooms there. As the sacrifices made here were generally made in silver coins, there was a lot less blood swilling around in the shower drains. This was an old college building, not a custom-built Tabernacle like they had in Kirkland, and the hastily installed facilities were barely fit for purpose. The cleaning staff would sweep everything into the drains and the fat would congeal into huge pipe clogging lumps that were incredibly hard to remove.

Acton exited Merric College by the main entrance, ignoring the guards, one of which giving him a friendly wave as he passed. He didn’t know who they were and didn’t want to know, the guards were looked down on by the acolytes. There was a young tall one (the friendly one) and a short old one. He heard the older one quite clearly, say ‘cunt’ behind him as he passed, but he ignored it, hunching into his coat and quickening his step into the darkness of the street.

He headed for the riverbank. The rain was off, but the puddles were still filling every hole in the pavement and the air was bitterly cold. Huddled into his dark coat he made his way down to the river and then along the cycle path and under Union Bridge. Wormwood lurked in the southern sky, masked by cloud, its dim red light seeping through like a blood stain, it followed on his left shoulder as he made his way home.

There was a gang of teenagers lurking at the cemetery gate and the catcalled at him as he passed. ‘You smell like a kebab shop mate!’ Acton ignored these insults too, as he always did. One day though, and he’d swore this several times before, one day he’d get them.

Another ten minutes walking and he was not far from home. There was a canal that he had to cross to finish the journey and he walked over the millstream bridge, looking over the rail down into the dark, thick mud below. Dank water was backed up from a blockage downstream, so the canal was brimming with stagnant water, partially covered in weeds and refuse. He tutted; somebody should do something.

On the other side of the bridge, there was a dark bundle of rags lying at the side of the millstream and as Acton walked past it, it spoke. ‘Hey, chief!’ it groaned in a drunken drawl. ‘Hey chief, gor anything tae drink?’

Acton looked down at the man at his feet. All he saw of the man’s face was an ill-defined shape, covered in matted hair. The man’s eyes glinted in the moonlight.

‘Are you addressing me?’ enquired the acolyte.

‘Got anything to drink?’ slurred the old sot. ‘Help me up brother.’

The old drunk lurched but could not get up. Either too drunk or too cold, he could do no more than lift his head from the paving stones.

‘I certainly will not touch you!’ hissed Acton. ‘Look at you. You are disgusting. Where are the rest of them? Hiding out in the mill again? I’ll call the muta on you.’

‘God bless you,’ sobbed the old man, crying at the mere mention of the Committee. ‘God bless you sir, god bless you…’

‘God bless me?’ snarled Acton. ‘Bless me for what?’

With a sudden violent surge Acton kicked the old man in the stomach, winding him and making him gasp for air.

‘Bless me for this?’ and he kicked again.

The old man gasped and wheezed, well beyond being able to speak.

Finally, Acton kicked the man in the head, the force of the blow rolling the drunkard over the edge of the pavement and into the millstream.

The old sot went bodily over the side, a dead weight, slowly sinking into the mud feet first. As the cold water began to enter his layers of clothing the drunk seemed to come to his senses, but it was too late. As he tried claw his way out, he only dug himself deeper, and in two more heart beats he was gone from sight completely.

Acton was long gone by the time the old man drowned. He walked quickly up the steps that led away from the south bank. Only one more street and he was home and as always, once at the top of the steps he turned to look back at the Temple, far away, but illuminated against the moonlit sky.

He heard the call of the Silver Trumpets and checked his watch. “Bloody late again!”

***

The Silver Trumpets in question were for decoration only. They stuck out of the windows of each side of the topmost room of the Greyfriars Church tower, an area directly underneath where Thorman and the Archbishop had met, with tall gothic windows that left the room open to the elements and the occasional pigeon.

The Silver Trumpets protruded out of each window, two on each side, eight in all and it was doubtful that any of them could be blow. The sound that Action heard that everyone within a half-mile radius heard, was coming from loudspeakers, discreetly mounted above the Trumpets.

The speakers were controlled by a battered public address system that was partially covered by a blue tarpaulin to keep the weather off it. The guards had been tardy, and the speakers had not worked on the first attempt and some rewiring had been attempted. This had resulted in their call being half an hour late. The Trumpets were meant to sound on Sundays, in times of war and on the first day of every month after the last of the Burnt Offerings. It was the duty of the guards to sound the trumpets, but it was not one that they carried out with any sense of urgency.

‘Ah well, happy December,’ commented the tall young temple guard as he switched off the sound system and unplugged it at the wall.

The guards warmed themselves up in the tea shack for fifteen minutes and then returned to the main gate. They wore matching black leather jerkins and conical helmets. The tunic worn underneath the jerkin was tasselled, and on top of everything a thick leather belt was slung, with a scabbard dangling at the hip that contained a gladius. When at the gate they also carried H&K MP5 submachineguns.

The younger man wore his uniform better, he was tall and as thin as a reed, but with a muscular grace that was only revealed when he moved. Standing still he looked like an underfed clothes-pole with a goofy smile. His name was Nathan Jack, he was half-Asian and had been Muslim back when religions had meant anything. Before the reditus he had just been starting university, but when everything got all jumbled up his mother thought, since both her sons had been taking karate lessons since they had been small children it was a good idea to get them jobs as Temple guards. She had been right, as other heretical families were persecuted by the muta, the Jack family, with their Temple connections were left well alone. Nathan’s younger brother, being quicker witted and more useful, had been sent north a year ago and little had been heard of him since.

The other man was Joe Bunn, he was older and fatter, a former policeman who had fitted comfortably into the job of Temple Guard like a faithful old dog being led to a new kennel. He had bunions on his feet and the livid red face of a man that like to drink. By anyone’s estimation he was a dreadful man, but Jack got on with him well enough as he got on with everyone.

They were on the night shift, a shift that started at seven in the evening and ended at seven in the morning when the day shift arrived and took over.

Boring as Jack’s job was now, it was still way better than last year when they had been doing the Jealousy Offerings. He spent all day herding around terrified women while the acolytes forced them to drink the bitter waters. That had been awful. It was all over now though, and he was thankful for that.

These days Evermarch had calmed down a bit. There were less killings and almost no violence in the Temple. It was as if a fever had run its course and a new normal was beginning to take shape.

After his stint at the gate, it was time for Jack to go home. He lived in a flat twenty minutes away from Merric and he enjoyed the walk. He liked walking home in the dawn light, with the sun at his back and Wormwood hidden from view. There was only one checkpoint currently between him and home and the muta knew better than stop and check a Temple guard.

His flat had been big when just him and his wife had lived in it. But now his mother and sister-in-law were both staying with him, and it felt cramped, each woman having brought as much as they could with them from their previous homes as they could.

He unlocked and entered the flat as quietly as he could, removed his boots at the door and padded past the bedrooms to the kitchen at the end of the corridor. His mum was frying eggs for his breakfast. The kitchen was small, with a table that sat only two people. He took off his coat and hung it on the back of one of the two chairs and sat down.

There was a TV on the kitchen work top, the volume down low. His mum was watching one of the morning shows. She prepared and brought him a cup of tea, then later eggs and toast with ketchup the way he liked it. As she cooked, she talked quietly of small things, shopping lists and gossip. She was a small, plump Asian woman with greying hair tied up in a bun. Her name was Tulu.

‘Thanks mum!’ he said gratefully as he tucked into his breakfast. She didn’t always feed him and if he had been the sort of person that paid notice to these sorts of things, he would have realised that it was always because she had something she wanted to talk to him about that she didn’t want the other women in the house to hear.

‘They were fighting again last night Nathan,’ she whispered to him as she sat down at the other side of the table with her own cup of cold tea. ‘Worst one so far. They both went to bed with thunderclouds.’

‘What about?’ Nathan asked with little interest.

‘Oh,’ sighed his mother. ‘They were nipping away at each other all night, about who has the tougher life and who does the most housework. So silly. Why can’t she just move out? She has her cleaning job now.’

His mother was referring to her other son’s wife, Evaline, who had been sleeping on the sofa in the living room for the last year. Nathan did feel the need to say anything, he had picked up the morning newspaper and was flicking casually through it.

‘She was never meant to stay here. It’s not fair for you and Mary, I don’t think so,’ went on his mother.

There were sounds of movement from the living room. Nathan caught a glimpse of the tall, thin form of Evaline passing through the corridor to the bathroom. She had pale skin and long red hair, thrown into wild stylings by a night on the sofa. Tuti leaned over and turned up the volume on the TV a little. The walls in the flat were thin and the bathroom was next to the kitchen.

‘Mary was calling her a freeloader last night. I don’t know why Evaline doesn’t just move out, she’d be happier. I think she’s just staying to annoy Mary now. Don’t you want to do something about it?’

‘Do what mum?’

She was about to say something, but there was a loud farting sound from next door, heard clearly over the sound of the TV which forced Tuti to stifle a laugh. Tuti under normal circumstances laughed like a braying donkey.

Nathan laughed, more at the sight of his mother turning red than at the sound itself. When Evaline went back into the living room she gave them both a dirty look.

‘Oh dear,’ said Tuti, who then stood and went to the sink to start cleaning the plates.

Five minutes later Evaline was in the kitchen making toast. It was small room and cramped for three people, so Nathan moved through to the living room. He moved Evaline’s bedding so he could sit down. Usually, he would watch half an hour of TV before going to bed, and he caught a nearby chair with one of his long legs and hooked it over so he could rest his feet on it.

As he flicked through the channels his wife Mary entered, coming from their bedroom, a solidly build dark-skinned woman wearing a fluffy dressing gown and bunny slippers. She snuggled up against him on the sofa. Again, if he was the sort of person that noticed these things, he would have realised that she was only ever affectionate to him in this way when she needed him on her side whenever there was trouble brewing.

Trouble was indeed brewing and while he watched the news, and then what passed for a weather forecast in the world these days, Evaline entered and sat on the armchair, tucking her feet up and fixing Mary with a stony stare. After a while the women started snipping and sniping at each other, unnoticed by Nathan as he half dosed, weary from his nights work and ready for sleep.

He only began to tune into the argument as it got more heated.

‘It’s ok for you!’ cried Evaline. ‘You’ve all got each other! My family is all gone. The Committee took our five-bedroom house. Don’t you think if I had a better place I would go there?’

‘You don’t need a five-bedroom house all to yourself. There are plenty of places south of the river!’ At this Mary picked up the newspaper that was in Nathan’s lap and tossed it at the other woman. ‘There! Look in that!’

Evaline batted the newspaper aside. ‘It’s not just that. I’m safe here. A woman out there all alone, I’d be a target for the muta. I’m only safe under this roof. I’m here for the exact same reason you are.’

‘Things have settled down. Go to one of the women only blocks then. Plenty out in the projects.’

Evaline bridled. ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

Mary sat up. ‘Don’t speak to me like that!’

‘You’ve got it all sorted out haven’t you Mary,’ snarled Evaline. ‘You got in here pretty quickly, didn’t you? All those other unmarried women looking for men connected to the church or in other safe jobs. You knew what you were doing.’

‘How dare you!’ cried Mary, then turning to Nathan. ‘Are you going to let her talk to me like that?’

Nathan laughed. All of this was beyond his capacity, as his mother often said he had too gentle a soul to even know what to do in a quarrel. All he could do was watch with the mild passive concern of a Labrador dog and with about as much understanding.

Tuti slipped past to her room at the other end of the corridor, beside the front door. When the fighting started, she would hide in her room and listen through the wall. She hated violence of any kind and if she was ever dragged into a fight then tears would start rolling down her face and she would lock herself in her room.

Now that he had seen his mother make her escape, Nathan wanted to go to bed too and was trying to judge the safest moment to leave the room. Ideally, he would go and join his mother and lie down on the bed beside her on the bed in her cluttered room. A room stuffed full of boxes of clothes, shoes, coats, and everything else that she saved from her own home before the church had taken it.

Evaline, having now reached a suitable level of anger, started making a big show of packing her clothes into the three suitcases that constituted her life. It was only now that Nathan noticed the open cases and the disarray of clothes that lay about them, meaning that this performance had also been given the night before.

She pulled on a pair of jeans and then hunted out her boots. Mary watched with twisted lips and folded arms. Nathan leaned out one of his long legs to try and fish in the newspaper without being noticed. He might not be able to escape, but he could at least find something to hide behind.

They all stopped what they were doing when there was a knock on the door. Jack looked up at the clock. It wasn’t even nine yet. He rose to his feet and walked out into the hall, but his mother was already at the door as her bedroom was right beside it. She stood on her tip toes to look through the peephole then suddenly yelped and started frantically pulling at the door chain.

‘Who is it mum?’ he asked in bemusement.

Tuti flung open the door and there was Randolph, Nathan’s younger brother, stood there wearing army fatigues with a kit bag at his feet.

Tuti yelped again and literally leapt up at him to give him a hug. Nathan tried to speak but the house was in sudden turmoil as the other women all began talking at once. They dragged Randolph Jack into the living room leaving Nathan to check the stairwell and shut the door.

‘What’s happening?’ Randolph demanded jokingly as he was led away. ‘I can hear you fighting all the way down the stairs!’

They barely made it into the room and remained lodged in the hall. Randolph was tall, but shorter and stockier than his elder brother. He had the same friendly smile, perhaps a little cheekier, which fitted his character. He was thinner than the last time they had all seen him, his cheeks more pinched, but he seemed happy to see them all.

He tried to answer the questions as they were asked, breathlessly and all at once. ‘I’m on leave. I’ve just come from the station. My unit is coming down in three weeks. I’m here to stay!’

Breakfast was prepared and served to him on a tray in front of the TV. Evaline had latched onto his arm and would not let go, so he ate and drank his tea with one hand.

‘Will you make nasi goreng tonight mum?’ he asked. ‘The army food is dreadful. I’ve been dreaming about your food all the way down on the train.’

‘I’ll make some now,’ said Tuti and went into the kitchen, glad to do something for the son she had not seen in a year.

Nathan was taking in the outfit that his brother was in. Camouflaged fatigues with deep pockets in the jacket. ‘You don’t have to have tassels on your clothes?’

‘No, bra,’ smiled Randolph as he cut up his eggs. ‘They would get caught on everything. You don’t have any of that sort of stuff in the army.’

Finally, the family moved into the living room, Randolph was given the armchair and the others arranged themselves on the sofa. Evaline sat at her husband’s feet.

Tuti went to the kitchen to prepare food and a short while later arrived with a steaming bowl of hot rice.

‘Oh, thanks mum!’ he said and began shovelling it into his mouth.

Now that she was back Tuti now started her questioning, barging everyone else into silence.

‘Just up north, mum,’ he continued. ‘Hundreds of miles. It takes forever to get there because the planes can’t fly, and the trains are so slow. It’s all desert up there, really cold at night. We’d be in trenches for weeks at a time. They called us back to Camp Moab a month ago, and I guess they rand out of things for us to do mum, coz the have started sending us home.’

‘Mashallah’, whispered his mother under her breath.

‘Yeah,’ he smiled. ‘Looks like we won the war, my whole unit is going to be down here soon.’

The chatter continued and Nathan, despite himself, yawned, slipping further into the sagging sofa. He would usually be in bed by now.

Two hours later and Tuti was in the kitchen sorting out Randolph’s clothes for washing. Mary had grown bored and was back in her room, while Eveline had her eyes closed and her head leaned against her husband’s knee. The two brothers were now the only ones talking.

‘They called us in because you Evermarch Cops are too soft, bro. We’re going to shake this place up. There are giants in Strake now, you know? Tame ones. Times are changing, bro.’

Nathan was confused. His brother had been part of a contingent of templars sent north, like Nathan he had been a guard at Evermarch Temple. They had never been connected to the army.

‘They? Who is “They”?’ asked Nathan.

‘The army, bru.’

‘You’re still a templar?’

‘Not any more bru, we all got rolled into the army up north. A lot of things changed up there. A lot of things are going to change down here too. That’s what the old man said in the big talk they gave us back at base before we went on leave.’

Suddenly Eveline was awake. She stood up and went to the bathroom.

Randolph took the opportunity to lean in and whisper conspiratorially to his brother.

‘Wait until we are alone, bro. The stuff I’ve seen.’

‘Like what?’ Nathan whispered back, leaning in too.

‘Insane stuff, even for the times we live in. We rampaged through the towns up there. We had soldier dying of lust. There was leprosy, giants, quails.’

‘Giant quails?’

‘Nah. Giants and quails. We fought the giants and ate the quails. We had to be really harsh with the locals, it wasn’t cool bru. If anyone spoke up about anything, then they were struck down the leprosy. We learned to keep our mouths shut.’

‘This sounds mental, Randy.’

‘When we came up against the fiery serpents some of us preferred the leprosy to be honest. Part of the army mutinied. They were swallowed by a pit and consumed by fire. Some others got the plague and died.’

Randolph checked the door then went on. ‘All the time we were mucking about with giants and fiery serpents the mullahs were looking for Cannanites. Didn’t find any though. Found some talking asses. Donkeys, not butts.’

Nathan was dumb struck in disbelief. His brother had always been a joker, a wind up merchant, but this seems such a strange joke, and delivered earnestly.

Tuti came through from the kitchen. ‘I’m going to wash all the clothes in that bag,’ she declared.

Seeing Nathan yawning she said, ‘you need to go to bed. You’ve work again tonight.’

Nathan nodded; he was exhausted from listening to Randy’s incredible stories.

‘This can be your room, with Eveline,’ said Tuti. ‘When did you last sleep too? You look knackered.’

The brothers both stood up, the better to be organised by their mother. Their paths next crossed in the hallway as they both went to their rooms.

‘The places we went to,’ said Randolph. ‘We would kill half of them and take the other half as slaves. We had to. The ones that fought against it died. I don’t know how I deal with this bro.’

Neither did Nathan. He hugged his brother, then went to bed.